Disney itself is no stranger to gaming, publishing everything from Warren Spector's Epic Mickey to mobile puzzler Where's My Water through its Disney Interactive label. Could the company put those same gaming resources toward reviving Star Wars gaming franchises like Dark Forces or the X-Wing games, or even the more recent Star Wars Battlefront?

Not so fast. In a conference call following the announcement, Disney CEO Bob Iger noted that the company is "likely to focus more on social and mobile than we are on console," as far as Star Wars-based games go. "We'll look opportunistically at console, most likely in licensing rather than publishing, but we think that given the nature of these characters and how well-known they are, and the storytelling... they lend themselves quite nicely—as they've already demonstrated—to the other platforms."

That bit about "social and mobile" may seem disheartening to fans of Star Wars strategy and shooter games, but there's reason not to get too gloomy. Iger specifically left the door open for licensing the property to other companies for other platforms, a situation that really wouldn't be a huge change from how the company has handled its Star Wars titles of late.

Internal development has been of diminishing importance at LucasArts in recent years, and the company has slowly downsized in waves from a bloated, 500-person staff since the middle of last decade. The result has been a bevy of recent Star Wars games developed outside of LucasArts itself: from Bioware-developed MMO The Old Republic to Traveller's Tales' Lego Star Wars to Terminal Reality's Kinect Star Wars to Pandemic's Star Wars: Battlefront series. Disney seems likely to continue this trend, licensing its properties to interested developers rather than developing itself, and maybe even taking a further hands-off approach by pawning off publishing duties to other companies (EA seems a likely candidate, having published The Old Republic recently).

LucasArts' only announced internal project currently in development is Star Wars 1313, an ambitious cinematic action game the studio premiered at this year's E3. A LucasArts spokesperson said the Disney acquisition shouldn't affect that game's development. "For the time being all projects are business as usual," he said. "We are excited about all the possibilities that Disney brings."

Of course, LucasArts means more than Star Wars games, especially to a certain generation of gamer who grew up with the company's well-loved original adventure titles. LucasArts showed its willingness to dip into that well recently, with 2009's Telltale-developed Tales of Monkey Island reboot and HD re-releases of the first two Monkey Island games for consoles and mobile devices. Will Disney continue the trend by putting its resources into revivals of other adventure classics like Maniac Mansion, Grim Fandango, or The Dig?

There's reason to doubt it. Consider that, in the aforementioned conference call, Disney said, "we didn't ascribe any value to Indiana Jones as part of the valuation of this deal." That partly has to do with some confusing rights issues with Paramount Pictures, but also shows just how focused Disney is on Star Wars as the most important part of the Lucasfilm catalog. If a major film franchise like Indiana Jones isn't getting attention from Disney in the wake of the buyout, a collection of relatively niche, decades-old adventures games stand even less of a chance at making an impact in the company's halls. (Disney and LucasArts have yet to respond to a request for comment on the matter.)

Unfortunately, LucasArts' classic game catalog is even more likely to be seen as a drop-in-the-bucket for a major international conglomerate like Disney than it was for a struggling independent publishing house like LucasArts. Disney will more than likely continue to sit on these properties, treating them with the same kind of benign neglect fans have been used to for decades, sometimes to the chagrin of their creators. "Dear Disney: I would like to buy the IP for a game I created called Monkey Island from you," series progenitor Ron Gilbert cheekily tweeted yesterday. "P.S. I have no money."

Maybe if someone else with deep pockets comes along and expresses interest, Disney would be willing to make some quick cash licensing these neglected properties elsewhere. But at least one of LucasArts' classic game creators seems more interested in letting his older properties stay as pleasant memories. "In all seriousness, though, who gives a damn about old ideas? Mine, George's, Walt's, anybody's?" Grim Fandango creator Tim Schafer tweeted. "New ideas are being created every day. The best entertainment news we could ever hear would be some rich person just bought every IP, forbidding anyone from using them."

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

93 Reader Comments

Even LucasArts got a jab in on that game in Curse of Monkey Island. Genuinely weird spell-based problem solving in a world with no real thematic cohesion and a protagonist with no visible face and a bland personality.

Unlike Star Wars, the success of that franchise has really been tied to Harrison Ford. He's more than likely never doing another of those movies again. You can do a Star Wars movie without Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie, but you really can't do a Indiana Jones movie without .... Indiana Jones.

Harrison Ford only "is" Indiana Jones until he isn't. It's a movie; with the right casting, the right script and the right direction, a reboot will win over even the skeptics with time.

Ironicending wrote:

The problem is sometimes you have to go through a few Roger Moores and Lazenby's to get there. I don't dislike Moore, but he did make Bond iffy for me.

"Fatuousness" is the most apt description I've read for the Moore Bond. It didn't help that his Bond was one who embraced too many au courant fashions - Bond in a leisure suit! Bond in bell bottoms! - from a sartorially decrepit era.

Ironicending wrote:

I think the reason why Bond was able to get away with it is that each actor treated Bond differently.

Wasn't that only established when different actors began to portray Bond? ;-)

Ironicending wrote:

Indy is essentially a B movie with a AAA budget and a hyper charismatic lead who is a guy that is in just over his head and gets through with as much luck as he does skill. Crystal Skull felt like an F grade movie (is that a thing?) on a AAAA budget and we were expected to eat it up and thank them.

I didn't find anyone's performance to be redeemable, the absolute worst deilvered by Shia LeBeouf. Even Harrison Ford wasn't right, like he knew this was garbage.

I thought LeBeouf actually played his role with more conviction (albeit less innate talent/range) than Ford, who was clearly slumming for an "easy" paycheck. Blanchette was just bizarre.

anormalgeek wrote:

The problem is that it also severly damaged the brand. Even worse was that the attempt to setup Shia Lebouf as a future replacement protagonist failed miserably. You can replace every single actor in Star Wars and nobody bats an eye. It is financially difficult to do the same with Indiana Jones. Even if he wasn't too old, Ford said at one point that he is totally done with it anyway.

There were some good ideas there, but casting LeBeouf was a misfire, as, I think, was making Indy Jr. a greaser to begin with. I recently saw The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch and I think Tomer Sisley has a certain something that might make for a contemporary Indiana Jones.

On my college scholarship applications I mention messing around with EMS memory in MS-DOS when I was 4 - just so I could play this game.

hah that's awesome! a good topic, just the right amount of obscure and relevant. i totally forgot about expanded memory space (or was it extended?), the bane of those early 90s DOS gaming days. i vividly remember not understanding a single thing about it but i could get it to work by, like, turning off certain IRQ ranges from the BIOS? also, can't forget trying to get SOUNDBLASTER to work right.

Dos boot disks - part of a forgotten era.

Thanks for making me remember the joys of trying to adjust the amount of conventional memory I have so that there's enough to run a game! Spent so much time trying to figure out the optimal values so I could actually get the mouse driver loaded. >_<

memories of Autoexec.bat and config.syshimem.exeemm386.exedos high, umbmouse.com highseem to remember SOUNDBLASTER 220 then something...and LH for load high... mmm memories.trying to workout how much space you needed and if you had enough to load the cdrom drivers.

i may VM a DOS box. wonder if i still have the Olivetti MS DOS 3.1 diskette's - or more to the point a floppy drive that works?

Unlike Star Wars, the success of that franchise has really been tied to Harrison Ford. He's more than likely never doing another of those movies again. You can do a Star Wars movie without Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie, but you really can't do a Indiana Jones movie without .... Indiana Jones.

Harrison Ford only "is" Indiana Jones until he isn't. It's a movie; with the right casting, the right script and the right direction, a reboot will win over even the skeptics with time.

Exactly. I think this point is proven quite well with the Star Trek reboot. Leonard Nimoy --> Zachary Quinto.

I'm frankly shocked that they don't consider Indiana Jones to be worth anything; while yes, I understand that they have limited rights, I have a hard time believing that a deal couldn't be worked out. Not that I actually want to see more movies, but games? He's ripe for them.

I have to admit in my eyes the real tragedy here, though, is more Star Wars movies; I felt like the prequel trilogy was a mistake, and adding a sequel trilogy is unlikely to go any better. Then again, I have never felt the obsession of Star Wars fans in the first place, so what do I know? I'm sure they'll make money, but then, so did Transformers 2.

Unlike Star Wars, the success of that franchise has really been tied to Harrison Ford. He's more than likely never doing another of those movies again. You can do a Star Wars movie without Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie, but you really can't do a Indiana Jones movie without .... Indiana Jones.

That's why I mentioned video games; lots of potential there, without having to deal with the fact that Harrison Ford is old now.